Senator David Shafer (R-Duluth) today delivered the following remarks in support of his motion to override Governor Sonny Perdue’s veto of Senate Bill 1, the Zero Based Budget Act:
“I rise to ask your support of my motion to override the former Governor Sonny Perdue’s veto of Senate Bill 1, the Zero Based Budget Act.
“The Senate has passed a version of zero based budgeting four times in the last eight years, the last three times unanimously. Senate Bill 1 was bipartisan in co-sponsorship. It passed the House and Senate by unanimous votes.
“Georgia currently operates under what is called a continuation budget. Once a new spending program is approved by the General Assembly, it is automatically rolled over into the next succeeding budget under a single line item called continuation.
“For those of you who are freshmen: the budget that will be placed on your desk for your approval will likely detail as little as 3 percent of the state’s spending — the new stuff. Everything else will appear on one line, without detail or description, without any attempt at justification.
“This system hides waste and makes it difficult for us, as lawmakers, to be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.
“In his Budget Address two weeks ago, the new Governor, Nathan Deal, announced that he was eliminating 14,000 authorized positions. These positions were all vacant, but unbeknownst to us in the General Assembly, many of those positions were still being funded. Agency heads have come here, boasting that they have reduced the number of employees, conveniently omitting the fact that, under the cloak of continuation budgeting, the money for the vacant positions was still being appropriated and still being spent.
“Senate Bill 1 moves us to a system to a zero based budgeting. All expenses, including those approved in earlier years, will have to be re-justified, and rightly so.
“To make things manageable, Senate Bill 1 requires ¼ of the budget to be zero based each year, so that over a four year period of time, the regular term of a Governor, the entire budget is re-justified.
“You have on your desks the Veto Message from Governor Perdue. I encourage you to read it and to consider the reasons he gave for returning the bill to us. In his analysis, this bill should be rejected because it infringes on the executive powers of the Governor.
“I believe his analysis is fundamentally mistaken. The tax dollars of this state do not belong to the Executive Branch. They do not belong to the Legislative Branch. They do not belong to the House or to the Senate. They belong to the taxpayers, and we are merely their stewards – all of us. And we cannot discharge our responsibilities as stewards of those dollars if we do not understand how they are being spent. We cannot responsibly vote on a budget when the 90% or more of the spending is hidden from us. We cannot responsibly steward tax dollars when the money allocated to vacant positions is being sloshed around without any legislative accountability or oversight.
“Seldom does this body take the extraordinary step of overriding a Governor’s veto. I believe that this extraordinary step is warranted in this instance, and I ask you to join me in voting to override the veto and pass Senate Bill 1 into law. If there are no questions, I will yield the well.”
Sen. David Shafer serves as Chairman of the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee. He represents the 48th Senate District, which includes portions of Fulton and Gwinnett counties. He may be reached at 404.656.0048 or by e-mail at david.shafer@senate.ga.gov.
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release:
January 27, 2011
For Information Contact:
Natalie Strong, Director
Thomas W. Krause, Manager of Communication Strategies
Tom.Krause@senate.ga.gov
404.656.0028